Familiar
by nimacu
Summary: Something's happened, and things aren't the way they are supposed to be.
1. Strangers

Title Familiar

Author:Nimacu

Summary: Something's Changed

Feedback: I want it, I need it. I crave it

Disclaimer: None of it's mine. It's all Joss.

A/N**I wrote this along time ago and never posted it.

She smiled as she gave the clerk her money, it was an easy sort of smile. It was the kind of smile that gave the recipient the feeling that they shared some sort of inside joke. She took her coffee from the clerk and sat down at a table near the front of the restaurant. The cashier watched her for a moment, wondered what she was doing here alone. But the girl was soon forgotten as the next person gave their order.

She sat drinking her coffee and reading a book, the book had a plan leather cover. If anyone had been paying enough attention they would have guessed she was reading a bible, but no one was, and she wasn't. The girl closed the book and smiled again as she slightly laughed at something in the book. She got up from the table and threw the coffee away, as she walked out of the doors she brushed arms with a man in a tweed coat, she looked at the man for a second, he had the kind of face that seemed familiar even though she couldn't place it. She shook the feeling of déjà vu and left.

That girl had seemed familiar somehow, although why he was certain he didn't know. He soon forgot about her as he ordered a tuna sandwich on rye and a iced tea. He took his order to go and left the restaurant heading back to work.

He walked into the library and smiled at his assistant. "You can go and take your lunch break now." The red-headed woman smiled back at him and left without saying anything at all. She headed to her car in the high-school parking lot, but on her way out of the foyer she noticed another one of the army recruiting officers had set up a table there. She took a look at the man, knowing that military men were usually pretty easy on the eyes. Something about him caught her eye, it wasn't that he was overly attractive, it was more that he seemed sort of familiar; non the less she had to go. Her lunch break was only a half hour.

The army officer watched the red-headed woman walk by. "She's checking me out" he thought to himself. "I've still got it. I'll have to remind the wife of that when I get home." He smiled to himself as he started to pack up his display, he'd been there all morning and it was time to move on to another highschool.

Soon enough the day was done and he headed home to his family, his little girl was playing in the yard. "Daddy, you're home!" She yelled with a child's pennace for stating the obvious, as she ran up and hugged him, before tottering off to play with the neighbor's daughter. He could see his wife on the inside of the screened in porch, she was reading that silly book she'd picked up a couple of days ago at the thrift store. 

"Hi Sweetie" She greeted him with the customary peck as he bent over her without even looking up from her book.

"Doll, you're not done reading that yet?" He'd barely seen anything more than her forehead above the book since she'd started reading it.

"Of course I am, I just started reading it again" She sat the book down and smiled at him.

The husband looked around the porch, "Where's A.J.?"

"At my mother's"

He inwardly grinned, if she sent the baby over to her mother in the middle of the day that only meant one thing, he had to be sure. "And Katie's next door?" His eyes were saying things that his mouth wasn't.

"Yes, she staying over there for dinner." She had the "you're-going-to-get lucky-gleam" in her eye, he knew the look well and before she could say anything else he grabbed her in his arms and whisked her inside, the book lay forgotton on the table where she'd laid it down.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Two men stand shrouded in darkness, they're in what appears to be a basement.

"Have they guessed?"

"No"

"Do you think they will?"

"I hope not."

"What do you mean you hope not, you has sure has hell better more than hope not!"

"It's a powerful spell, to change time. Alter events. Fate has a way of righting itself. The affects of the spell will never disappear, but they might remember things"

"If you value your life, you'd better pray they don't"


	2. Where All Your Dreams Come True

Title Familiar Chapter 2

Author: Nicki C.

Summary: Something's Changed

Feedback: I want it, I need it. I crave it

Disclaimer: None of it's mine. It's all Joss.

The assistant librarian had a secret life, one that she didn't tell her boss and mentor about. She was thinking about this as she walked into the dark and dank bar, grabbing a seat in the back. Knowing that in her no nonsense tan skirt and jacket she didn't quite fit in with the clientele, but despite that she wouldn't have missed this for the world. Six years and she had only ever missed three.

Even though it didn't seem possible the lights in the bar dimmed even more and the stage lit up; illuminating five men on stage. And then they played. She knew them all, but she had eyes only for the guitar player.

Every time he walked out on the stage, before the lights hit them, he searched the crowd for her face. Something about her completed him, and it wouldn't be the same if she wasn't waiting in the audience for him.

It was 2 AM and they were packing up the last of the equipment, she was still there in the back of the bar waiting for him. He waved to the rest of the band and went over to join the woman.

"Does your mother know you hang out in a place like this?" he walked up to her, casually throwing his arm over her shoulder as they headed out.

"I don't think so, she must suspect though after all I did marry that shiftless musician they warned me about" she said this with a smile leaning up to kiss him.

The bartender watched the couple leave their heights evenly matched he with electric blue hair and she the classic redhead. The certainly seemed the odd pair, and for a moment he got a flash of the red-head kissing another woman. He sighed at the mental picture and went back to work, deciding that perhaps he should lay off of the late night porn.

"Yes you should" A young tall brunette walked out from behind him. "And you should probably stop thinking out loud too"

"You know you could give a man a heart attack doing that, and what are you doing here anyway. Don't you have a curfew or something?"

"Nope, nada, no such thing. Or at least not while my mother is asleep." She leaned up to kiss his lips but he held her back.

"I told you bit. I'm no pedophile. Besides I think you've met my rather eccentric and somewhat homicidal better half"

"Yeah I thought it was worth a shot though; where is she anyway? She promised to help me with my Tai-Chi if I showed up tonight."

"She's in the back, she's in one of her moods though. I'd be careful."

"Of course you would, that's why you're her bitch" The brunette smirked and walked away from the bartender leaving him sputtering about who the man was in the relationship.

The husband and wife lay awake in bed, he was going through a recruiting manual and she was filing her nails. The nail filing got louder and louder until he knew that he'd better say something before you took off the first layer of skin.

"What's wrong, you're attacking your nails like there the evil minions of hell" He joked

"I'm worried about Dawnie"

"What did she do this time, is she pregnant? Did she go back to school and drop out again? Or did they kick her out this time?" He loved her little sister like his own but it seemed like it was always one trauma on top of another.

"No she's not pregnant, well at least as far as I know. And she hasn't gone back to school again. But Mom says she's been sneaking out of the house at night and heading down to that club DW's. And those friends she has down there, ugh!"

"That bad?"

"They're even worse than her last crowd" She shuddered at the memory.

"And that's saying a lot" He added

"I don't know what to do, I guess I'll try talking to her"

"That's all you can do"

Angel was worried, he was more than worried. They'd been trying to get a hold of Buffy all week and they hadn't been able to find anything. They'd needed Willow's help with a spell and tried calling her but the number at the Summer's household had been disconnected or changed. He'd then tried contacting Giles in England but that number wasn't any good either. In fact he called every number he'd had for any of the Sunnydale crowd and all of the numbers had been disconnected. He'd called information, but they didn't have a listing for anyone in Sunnydale, California. In fact the operator had told him that there was no Sunnydale. So he'd done the only thing he could think of, left Wesley in charge and headed to where he knew Sunnydale was located. Just as he was entering into town he noticed something, and it wasn't a small something. The sign that normally read "Welcome to Sunnydale" (or at least it had until Spike ran it over) instead read "Welcome to Happy Oaks, California" with a byline that read.:

"Where all your dreams come true".


End file.
